FEBRUARY 28 2017

While Issue 941 conveniently confounded me for a Porsche design yesterday…I recalled the existence of 942 from memory. When you are Porsche family scion, clearly a gold watch is passe. So when Ferdinand Alexander Porsche (grandson of the original Ferdinand; son of “Ferry:) celebrated his 75th birthday in 1984, the factory gave him a unique longer larger, ‘proper’ 4 seater 928 variant. Given he was the original designer of the 911, it strikes me as a fair deal.

In Today’s Exchange Invest

Even from Malta today I can hear the bleating of a few oblivious souls in Frankfurt and London who, in their delusion are still screaming “we were robbed!” like a teenager who sees his team lose the final of the League Cup 3:2.

The much (MUCH!) more encouraging news is sign of a Chairman with a backbone in at least one of the organisations who are now on the verge of cancelling the caterers and the cake for the (delayed, probably DOA) merger of equal desperation.

Apparently Donald Brydon went on maneuvers and was smacked down by Joachim Faber. It seems, DB (as opposed to DB1) struggled to see a major market with vast regulatory commitments run by somebody accused of insider dealing while Faber made a big show of the presumption of innocence.

What else can I say? Well I would surmise it thus in an open letter to the Chairman of the London Stock Exchange:

“Dear Donald,

The time has come to drain the swamp!

Make the LSE great again!”

And of course, there’s more, happy scrolling:

In BigWorld

Out there in Bigworld, well actually Petrus 1989 Imperial Fetches More Than $35000 At Sotheby’s Sale.

Handelsblatt: “According to insiders, the E.U. demand was merely a pretext to abandon the deal. The main issue, they say, was the unresolved dispute over the official headquarters of the new firm.”

PLY: I am delighted to learn of an outbreak of principle at the upper echelons of the LSE as frankly this tawdry deal was reminiscent of the worst botch ups behind the bikesheds of the Burgenstock heyday. Donald Brydon bobs up to the surface as the only figure who appears to have a coherent ability to deploy a moral compass amidst a brace of busted flush CEOs, amongst others.

End the silly shopping gossip and let’s get what the parish needs: a reboot and a return to focussing on those festering internal elements of each separate entity which need an outbreak of management.

CBOE Holdings, Inc. To Join S&P 500
PR Newswire

Junior Partner Aims To Be NEX Big Thing In Exchange Rivalry
The Times

PLY: Profile of Patrick Birley the CEO of NEX’s SME exchange (nee Plus all those years ago). “He claims, for example, that equity crowdfunding is dying and accuses the AIM exchange, his much larger rival, of being fat and lazy and guilty of “egregious charges”.

The Times then quotes AIM boss Marcus Stuttard, responding “To broaden the UK capital markets we believe in collaboration across the financing ecosystem to create a seamless supply of equity finance.”

So, you can try the rather more dynamic approach of NEX (free listing for 6 months special offer now on…) or stick with AIM which gives the whiff of corporate blob whose concept of unbridled excitement is the annual charity day where you can wear your choice of pocket protector no matter how gaudy or colourful.

Patrick brings passion to SME finance for the long-term. That’s a great thing.